16 May 2008

Hardball's Chris Matthews usually has me reaching for a rolled up newspaper to smack upside his melon, so I have to be just as quick to give him credit when he gets something as right as he did, last night, when faced with clueless GOP AM radio babbler, Kevin James:

What do you think, separated at birth?

If you think about it, it had to happen, sometime. After the national political discourse became so dumbed-down that it consists of little more than loaded buzzwords and sloganeering, eventually we'd be left with commentators who don't even understand those.

In six little minutes, Kevin James epitomizes everything that is wrong with the political culture in America today--not just in his role as broadcaster--but as a consumer of information.

Clearly, it's no secret that partisan hacks dominate the airwaves, repeating talking points; "mindlessly," we often say. Exactly HOW mindlessly, we suspected, but didn't know for sure until last night.

This poor man's Limbaugh didn't know who Neville Chamberlain was or what he actually did, only that El Presidente said he was an "appeaser" and he did it to Hitler so it must be a bad thing. In that, he's little different than much of his audience, uncritically accepting whatever sounds good, and thoughtlessly parroting it back when asked for his own opinion.

That shocking level of mental laziness and incuriosity is precisely what makes James' caliber of so-called discussion so very dangerous. And it pervades every area you see. From the talk radio dittoheads, to the "anything with an Oprah sticker" book buyer, to everyone who says they like everything Radiohead does because, if you don't, "you just don't get it."